Normal is Just a Word
by oaksoup
Summary: Like a bug on a computer system, it seemed like this new timeline was having trouble reading a certain file on it, reading it as it should have been and not working as things were corrupted somehow. Ryuji/Chitose, mostly from Amazawa Keisuke's point of view. Digimon Cyber Sleuth Hacker's Memory story, follow up to Here With Me, my first ff of that series.


Living on a world who had forgotten what a Digital Monster was and in the way also forgot about the means to reach them was already a pain to deal for Keisuke Amazawa, who still struggled to not think as himself as the most recent member of Hudie even though after months of the reboot, he was slowly getting better.

After telling his friends the story about a girl and her sacrifice, about digital worlds and their mission, about what really their team's name _really_ meant, things menaced to break down. No one remembered the shy and brash butterfly they had as a sister and friend, but the very thought of her acts and words sent his beloved friends Ryuji and Chitose into tears. The team leader was the most affected by it, having a nervous breakdown in the middle of the black haired boy speech and had to be embraced into sanity again by his loyal friend and, incredibly, Sanada Arata helped him too. Hudie needed more than three months to recover all together, as Keisuke only told them about Erika and her story, but he did also discard some details that were fairly personal to him, like all the deal with Yu that he preferred to save for later. There was also the world of Erika's Memories inside EDEN, which he could still see as perfectly as when he was inside there on his best and worst nights, remembering the promise about a girl and the secrets that he was never to disclose. Those details would flourish onto light with time, but right now they were small rocks that could pile and lengthen their grief in his very own experience, plus, he knew little Erika wouldn't forgive him if he traumatized his brother, even if he deserved to know.

Today, the sky is blue, the grass is green, gravity holds organic and inorganic beings down. Surely, it _is_ a new world for Amazawa Keisuke and the Chosen Children, but looking at the big picture, for the world, as old and wise as it was, it was like nothing had happened. Keisuke is still especially surprised over that fact, after having listened to Suedou-san's rant about a brave new world where no one would suffer anymore, one that would shatter everything that was known to mankind to pieces, he was expecting a whole life experience for all living creatures. But Suedou-san was no more, just like Erika was. And all he could think is that it was the price they both had to pay for the rest of the world could attain normalcy again.

Once upon a time the sky was purple tincturing to red, the grass was glitchy and normal people and other beings could fly if non-analog beings gave them the ability to. That was before the big reset and everything was back into the old definition of what normalcy was. But "common", "normal" were just words, though, only made to describe something that needed to be described, and Keisuke was sure that people, changing as they were, could have accepted the new normal that could've become if Suedou's intentions had come to fruition.

Talking about what was normal and what was not, there was something that had been bugging the almond-eyed boy for a while… and yes, _'bugging'_ was the perfect word for it. Like a bug on a computer system, it seemed like this new timeline was having trouble reading a certain file on it, reading it as it _should have been_ and not working as things were corrupted somehow.

That being…

"No, no. Me? I have never, ever been interested on women! Much less have liked one!"

What were the probabilities of hearing those words coming from the very mouth of Imai Chitose, known womanizer from Ikebukuro? None, that's for sure. Or it should've been that way, Keisuke thought while watching his friend exclaim those words to everyone in Hudie to hear. It hadn't been the first time for him to say that words though, but everyone, excluding Chitose himself, couldn't help to be flabbergasted over them.

Every. Single. Time.

And really, _that_ 's what made everything stranger than what it should be.

Like a bug on the system, no one could remember Chitose not being a woman-lover, but his screams of his distaste for them and that it had been that way for years was so out of place… he couldn't understand.

But yet he could. Thanks to a certain scene he had on his mind, forgotten after all what it mean almost losing Erika to an evolved Eater but…

He needed to talk it out with someone who could know what it meant.

Keisuke felt some guilt after the flabbergasted reactions of everyone over Chitose's state of being.

"Huh? Something happened to Blondie?"

"I-It's not that something happened to him" - Keisuke's words were uncertain, and his hand, who were grabbing a dispensable cup of coffee, shaked, resounding with his feelings. "I believe it's more like… something related to the other world, you know. With those... things."

"The Eaters?" - The redhead at his side, Takumi Aiba, whom he had recently befriended due his grief over being the only one in his group who remembered too much, seeing the distress of his new friend, took out of his pocket a cinnamon candy stick that looked bit crushed but still tasty, and offered it to him.

He was the so called Cyber sleuth and he was known for being insanely powerful and meddlesome between good and bad hackers, and even though he doesn't have his powers anymore, the things he had seen and the things he had lived were good experience for him, who had mostly felt like a pawn to bigger forces after what had happened. And the meddlesome thing turned out to be his caring side, the one that missed his beloved digimon partners. He could understand him very well, after all.

"You might need to fill me up on why you believe its an Eater problem, then, I do only know you from your team." - he said, taking a sip on his own coffee too. It didn't had any mayo nor anything, as it was simply the nice cafe of the coffee shop in Nakano, but it didn't even have sugar, so Keisuke was kind of amazed that he could drink it as if it were water.

"Yeah, true… Just let me order my ideas." - Keisuke said softly, furrowing his eyebrows. "You remember EDEN Syndrome?"

"Heh." - Takumi laughed, as if it were his old friend. "Reason of why sometimes I got to use a cane, I still don't get accustomed to running."

"Seriously!? Gosh, and you looked so well last time..."

"...Its still nothing I can't defeat. But continue, please."

"Oh, oh yeah." - He actually looked a bit embarrassed. "Well, there was a lot of people affected by it, some of there were Hackers. Most of the hackers who got EDEN Syndrome were via what happened on the Valhalla Server, where Lady Rie deployed the Eaters."

"Yeah, I do remember that." - he smiled again, but this time, his eyes were burning with a dark flame inside them.

"R-right. Chitose was also attacked by Eaters that day. He contracted EDEN Syndrome, but thanks to us he was also the first person who recovered of it, too." - And here it started again, the trembling where he remembered cute, brave and extremely sick Erika, hellbent on saving his friend in place of Ryuji, who had been infected by Arcadiamon and was wallowing on darkness instead of thinking ways to save Chitose. It was understandable, everyone he loved had died or were knocking on Heaven's Door by that point. - "Erika thought on a way to save him, which was to connect into an Eater and following Chitose-san's scent via his Digimon partner. Then everything went wrong, E-Erika got attacked by an Eater Legion, she a-almost got killed by it there. I was also attacked by one, but managed to escape."

"So? You think something happened there?"

"I think… maybe the hit was enough to disrupt his data?" - It could've been, and the more Keisuke thought about it the more convinced he became. "I remember it being a strong Eater, and that one of his uh, tentacles…? I believe it grazed the data once, even"

Yeah, he could see a bit of a shine being lost to the void that it was the Eater Zone while carrying the data of Chitose Imai. And he couldn't care enough, as he was trying to run and then act. Everyone needed to be saved, and he was only doing what he could. But the feeling of guilt was there, and he was already scared.

Takumi Aiba listened patiently, and kept on slurping his black coffee until Keisuke stopped his monologue. When he stopped, he stood up from his chair to pat the other's unkempt hair.

"It sounds like you were in hell. I wish you had told me what was happening, maybe I could've been able to help you too." -he said, voice as warm as his hair.

Now that he knew about his powers, Keisuke wished it so. But they had their own paths to follow, and, even if it broke his heart ten thousand times, it was due to his own actions that he now had a bunch of amazing friends.

"I appreciate it, but things are what they are, and you had lots to do, too." - Keisuke smiled, a smile that felt real for once. "I know there's not much to do if Chitose had been affected by the Eater or not, but I just needed to confirm it… I don't know if it should've caused any damage or not."

"While you were talking I put my phone in the desk, right? I was sending our chat to Sanada, just to see if he could help us too." - The Cyber Sleuth chirped, taking the phone that Keisuke never even saw being put on the desk, too concentrated on his coffee and on how to put his thoughts into something readable for once.

"Oh. Oh! Hey!" - Fuck, he was too embarrassed to even talk.

Takumi pushed some buttons on his phone, furrowing a bit to then smile. "Hmm, he says we shouldn't worry. Eaters have an instant nature. If they caused damage, they don't cause chronic damage. You say Chitose was affected by it? Maybe all the data they got was of his womanizer nature, and nothing else. If something else had been affected, it would have already shown. And maybe you would've noticed it when he woke up, surely"

"Y-you think so?"

"Yeah, Arata-chan had fused with some Eaters for reasons that I'm still unable to understand. But for situations like this, the knowledge he has on them can be pretty useful, don't you think?"

"I guess so..."Keisuke took another sip of his cup, to find it empty. Damn, he really needed another cup.

"Want some more coffee Keisuke?"

"Ah, please..."

"No worries, I'll pay. Take care of this for a bit?" - And the sunny detective, just like that, got up from his chair to talk with the coffee shop owner while lazily throwing his phone to the almond eyen boy, who received it, stunned. So he took it, waiting for his friend to come back.

 _ **LIIIIINE**_

Keisuke shrieked, nervous about the sound that had sounded so strongly near himself. What the hel wass it…? Oh.

It was Takumi's phone started buzzing on his hand. The sender was Arata, who had sent another message, and it was fully intended to him.

Takumi sent him an OK from where he was. The nerve of him.

So, still baffled over what had happened, he read the message in a silent voice, slowly.

" _Don't worry about Imai-kun, Amazawa-san. The guy, whatever the form he takes, will always be nice to women and an idiot to boot._ Hah, thats true. Plus… wait.

Wait, WHAT!?"

He did not scream because it was a public place and he didn't want to be expelled the shop, but boy. That was a surprise he maybe did not want to be revealed it to him that way. But, was it true!?

Was it!?

-0-0-0-

While that happened, in Ikebukuro a pair of lovers were sharing the same bed. A lazy day was appreciated by everyone, and both of them needed the free time after working so much in Kamishiro Enterprises. They pay was good but the hours were long, and one Saturday shared by both was the best way of relaxation they could think to themselves.

They were trapped in converstion, afterglow made their voices softer and their embrace even more intimate. It was a theme people liked to talk whenever other people remembered only the bad things about the blond of them both, things that he had never done according to him. And it worried him, to be misinterpreted that way.

"… But don't you find strange how everyone seems to have a strange idea on how I am? Sure, I can talk with girls, be as much of a gentleman I can be, but I'm not a womanizer, I wouldn't have chosen you if I were..." - Chitose said, mouth aching for a cigar so he opted on only pouting his discomfor over those words he had listened again and again.

"Hm. I wouldn't worry about that." - Ryuji Mishima, always the stoic just took the other guy closer, chest to back, with his hand delineating the other's torso softly, as if it was the best way to calm him down.

"Huh? Why's that?" - Chitose chirped, eager for an answer.

"Whoever you choose, you would still come to me. And I would've accepted you in any way you came to me."

How cocky, Chitose though with a smile. But he was in the correct, and both of them knew it. Not that he was going to admit it that easily."You sure of that?"

"I never had any doubt in my mind. Not even when Keisuke told us about those monsters and how I was brainwashed by one, I know that inside me I never stopped to think about you" - Ryuji started licking at the love bites left on the other's shoulders, marking what was his with all the love he could demonstrate with that tough shelled exterior he had.

"Gosh, you are such a romantic, Ryuji..."

"For you, everything, Chitose."

" _So please, don't go away"_

Those words were left in holding, and Imai knew they were there. But all he could do was assure the other with his body, even when he was the one who mentioned he was always come back to him in every way possible.

"If that's a challenge, Ryuji, I accept it, too."

" _For you, everything, too."_

* * *

 ** _I've been wanting to write this one a LONG time ago but never've been able until today. I did now, I hope you like it.  
_**

 ** _Let's chat about Digimon Cyber sleuth, I still love the series. Lots._**

 ** _If you noticed this is a follow up to my last Digimon story, Here with Me. That shows I planned it ehehehehehhehe._**


End file.
